Chile vows to fight on with education reform after court setback

SANTIAGO, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Chile's center-left government
pledged on Friday to continue with its plan to give free
university tuition to the poorest students, despite a court
ruling that aspects of its education reform bill were
unconstitutional.

On Thursday evening, the South American country's
Constitutional Tribunal ruled that the bill, currently in
Congress, was "discriminatory" because it only granted free
tuition to students attending certain, mostly state-run,
universities.

The ruling creates another headache for the government,
which is already up against the clock to get a swathe of reforms
passed before the summer recess.

Improving access to higher quality schooling has been the
center plank of President Michelle Bachelet's drive to lessen
inequality in Chile, one of Latin America's most developed
economies.

The disputed bill, one of a number that form part of her
wider education reform package, seeks to ensure that in 2016
around 50 percent of students will benefit from free tuition,
worth a total of nearly $800 million.

But right-wing opposition lawmakers argue that granting the
benefit only to students attending certain colleges and
excluding many privately run universities was discriminatory,
and the court agreed.

Bachelet said in response that the government would not be
defeated on making the changes that it regards as essential to
ensure that "nobody deserving should be excluded from attending
university because they can't pay for it".

"I am personally going to take charge of identifying the
best alternatives so that within the legal and budgetary
restraints as many students as possible can receive free
education," she said.

Cabinet spokesman Marcelo Diaz said on Friday that the
government "had alternatives" but did not elaborate.

Those could include extending the benefit to include
students at more institutions, directly supporting some state
colleges, or the use of scholarships.
(Reporting by Rosalba O'Brien and Antonio de la Jara; Editing
by Sandra Maler)